Recently, during his inspection of artificial intelligence in Shanghai, Xi Jinping was presented with a report on the work by Peng Zhihui, co-founder of Intelligent Robotics, who also demonstrated the company’s robotic products to him. Xi Jinping then humorously asked, “Can we have robots join a football team in the future?” which sparked jokes among netizens.
According to reports from mainland media, on April 29th, Xi Jinping made artificial intelligence (AI) his first point of inspection during his visit to Shanghai. He visited the AI large-scale model professional incubation and acceleration platform “Model Space” in Xuhui District, Shanghai. “Model Space” is known as a large-scale model innovation ecological community, with over a hundred companies stationed there.
During the visit, Xi Jinping observed the major model product exhibition of key incubating enterprises and listened to presentations on relevant technical research and development as well as enterprise production operations.
On that day, Intelligent Robotics released a message on their WeChat official account stating that Peng Zhihui brought their core robotic products such as the Intelligent Inspire X2, Elf G1, and Expedition A2 along with scene algorithms to participate in the research activities and report to Xi Jinping on the development and application of embodied intelligence.
On April 30th, Intelligent Robotics company issued another press release stating that Peng Zhihui showcased the robotic products and related scene algorithms on-site, including the Elf G1 cleaning desktop garbage, the Inspire X2 riding a bicycle, and assembly of a car dashboard in various life and industrial scene applications.
Xi Jinping stood in front of the robots, watching them with interest and jokingly asked, “Can we have robots play on a football team in the future?”
In response, netizens made jokes such as “The gang leader feels more like a robot,” “Can we have robots serve as the President in the future,” “Why not let robots be the General Secretary,” “The failures of the Chinese men’s football team have led President Xi to self-deprecation twice,” and “It seems that the General Secretary doesn’t hold much hope for the national football team.”
Xi Jinping is a football fan and has given directives on the development of Chinese football multiple times since taking office, even demonstrating playing techniques himself, expressing his three wishes of China qualifying for the World Cup, hosting the World Cup, and winning the World Cup.
Mainland real estate giants have also shown interest in football, investing heavily in the sport. Companies like Wanda, Evergrande, R&F, Huaxia Happiness, Jiayuan Realty, Greenland, and Greentown have sponsored and named football teams. In the 2020 season of the “Chinese Super League,” 15 teams had real estate backgrounds, jokingly referred to as the “Chinese Real Estate League.”
However, the Chinese national football team has had a history of poor performance and has been involved in successive scandals. Since the former head coach of the national team, Li Tie, was investigated in 2022, the football industry has been in turmoil, with officials, coaches, players, referees, club executives, and agents being investigated. Former Deputy Secretary of the Chinese Football Association and Chairman Chen Xuyuan was sentenced to life in prison in March last year on charges of bribery, while Li Tie was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December 2024 for corruption involving over 119 million yuan.